Terror Missions and Civvies

I've had a look through and no on has quite covered this precise mission, I apologies if this would be better fitted into another thread though.

So I arrived at a terror mission to overwhelming Alien presence. I was able to kill a couple without loses, however my only option now is to try and rescue civvies by knocking them out and carrying them (don't know if this works as the rescue team got killed) which is when the thought hit me.

Why not for terror missions only introduce a low AP cost command (or even simply proximity triggered retreat on easier difficulties) to tell civvies you've approached within a certain number of tiles to run to the chopper. That way you can grab the alien gear/corpses nearby and leg it while rescuing a small number of civvies. There is an issue of chopper weight but considering that they grab tonnes of loot each mission that would exceed a few civvies.

Also, something has been bothering me about night terror mission and that is the lack of street and traffic lights at night, some buildings have mains power lights but all street lamps and other buildings have none. Perhaps low light (so no or even less effective than flares) emergency lighting in a super market or bank (maybe just the counter room?) since the bank I believe has the working lamps anyway. Some low ambient street lighting, or flickering lamps would add to polish and immersion of maps.

Not sure how practical the second is, or of an easy way to implement beside remaking the maps. Unless it could be done through an updated tile-set to avoid remaking maps? Similar could be done for ambient sounds suggested elsewhere? Sorry if I'm not clued up on how the map maker works.

Both have been brought up recently, though its good to have a thread specifically for the lighting.

I like this suggestion a lot! It would add a great deal of realism and convenience.

I, myself have wondered why there's no lighting in the city. I generally write it off as the stereotypical "All the local electronic devices flatline when a UFO comes into the area." part of the genre. Perhaps it's due to the alien engines, and perhaps it's a deliberate device of the invaders - to sow confusion and offer a tactical advantage to their own soldiers. Keeping with the sci-fi/horror aspect of the game, I'd suggest that, if there were to be some city lighting, that it would be minimal. Shadow play, dull red warning lights, flickering street lamps, and the like wouldn't destroy the FOW, nor would it break the horror theme. In fact (for future modders), it may even be fun to arrive in a low-power situation, but be able to turn the local power grid back on... if you can reach the problem area alive and hold it for a few turns.

One thing that I'd like to see is some spotlights on the troop carriers. It would make sense to illuminate your LZ for the sake of disembarking soldiers. This, of course, is working off the assumption that the aliens work better in the dark than humans do - being evolved in the blackness of space and whatnot. After all, I never see the aliens throwing flares or turning on lights to engage human targets.

On a last note, battlefield fires... I haven't seen them, either. Maybe they exist, but so far, I've only seen explosions. They wouldn't put out much light - a dim square at best, like a regular-sized campfire, but I'd still like to see it.

The 'power on' objective sounds really need. Major movie vibe. Unlikely it'll make it though (not even sure the game can do this).

The various other light sources I can get behind. Would be nice to have some various coloured lights. Rockets have a small chance to causes fires in vanilla I think, and its about flare radius.